November 8
Dance Party
6 p.m., $10 per person
Gym
Proceeds help fund next year's sixth-grade/middle school trips to New York
November 11-15
Annual Fund Drive
WMS Lobby
November 14
WMS Soccer
Scrimmage
3:30 p.m.
WMS Sports Field
Upper Elementary (9-12) Information Night (for parents of current third-graders)
5-6 p.m.
Great Room
November 19
Upper Elementary (9-12) and Middle School Information Morning (for parents of current third-graders and sixth-graders)
8:30 a.m.
Learning Commons
November 20
Primary (3-6) Information Morning (for current Toddler parents)
9:15 a.m.
Learning Commons
Kindergarten Information Night (for parents of second-year Primary students)
5-6 p.m.
Great Room
November 21
Lower Elementary (6-9) Information Morning (for current kindergarten parents)
9 a.m.
Learning Commons
WMS Family Involvement Group Third Thursday Nature Walk
3:25 p.m.
WMS Woods (meet in Peace Park)
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Annual Fund Drive Week is Nov. 11-15
WMS relies on its
annual fund to make our school an exceptional place for children to learn. Next week we kick off our Annual Fund Drive with the theme "WMS Journey." Please stop in the lobby to make your #WMSJourney2019 sign or tag your thoughts on
Facebook,
Twitter or
Instagram with #WMSJourney2019. There will also be musical performances, prizes and activities for kids. Thank you for your donations!
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Welcome Cristin Lettich
Please join us in welcoming Cristin Lettich, who has joined our faculty as the Curriculum and Instruction Coordinator. Cristin moved to the Wilmington area after several years as a middle school teacher in California. She has a background in project-based learning and a great deal of experience in all areas of the curriculum. She has begun her time in the 9-12 classroom, and in the short time she has been at WMS we have benefited from her strong background in curriculum development as well as her ability to work with all learners, differentiating instruction as needed. Cristin will be supporting school-wide technology initiatives while Rose Feehan is on maternity leave this spring and will be working in the middle school after spring break while Mandy Balanetsky is on maternity leave.
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Toddler
Room 6: Students in Room 6 have been embracing the season in the past few weeks as they've explored pumpkins. They dissected a pumpkin, and each child had a chance to scoop out seeds. Helping with snack preparation has become a class favorite, and the children recently practiced peeling clementines.
Room 5: Last week, Room 5 students celebrated Halloween by cutting open a pumpkin and finding hidden spiders in play dough (which helps develop finger strength). They also read "Mouse’s First Halloween" and "One, Two...Boo!" which explores the concept of scary feelings. As Thanksgiving approaches, they will be learning about indigenous people and talking about being thankful and accepting differences.
Room 4: Students have been busy exploring harvest topics, including pumpkins, which they dissected in the Maker Studio last week. They created a bird feeder from a pumpkin shell, and took a walk in the woods to observe seasonal changes. They also celebrated Diwali by trying out traditional dances and painting diyas.
Room 3 (year-round classroom): Students have been learning about life on the farm, including animal names (male, female and baby names), and talking about the seasons as the leaves change colors and fall outside their classroom window. This month, they will learn about owls - a topic inspired by an owl character in one of their favorite books, “The Busy Little Squirrel."
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Primary
A highlight for all Primary students last week was a visit from the Claymont Fire Company firefighters, who taught them about fire safety.
Room 20: Last week, students enjoyed a fossil presentation with Heather Siple, celebrated Diwali and made diyas, and learned about bats. Later this month, they will learn more about bats with an expert from Iron Hill Museum, study the changing leaves with a nature walk and "Leaf Man"-inspired project, and talk about gratitude and turkeys leading up to Thanksgiving.
Room 19: Students are packing their spiders away and moving on to leaf investigations. They plan to take nature walks around the WMS campus to observe different kinds of trees, make leaf and bark rubbings, and collect and examine leaves. Toward the end of the month, they will create a "thankful tree" with leaves that represent things for which they are grateful. Along with Room 16, they will tour Newlin Grist Mill later this month to learn about blacksmithing and milling flour and grain.
Room 17: In celebration of fall, students have been learning about the life cycle of a pumpkin and enjoyed a visit to Linvilla Orchards, where they took a hayride and visited with the farm animals. They recently read some books about Dia de los Muertos and talked about some of the holiday’s traditions, and enjoyed a fossil presentation with Heather Siple. Later this week they will learn more about Diwali from a classroom parent and join Room 20 for a presentation about bats from Iron Hill Museum.
Room 16:
Room 16 students were busy last week preparing apples in the practical life area. They learned how to cut apples using an apple slicer and offer them to classmates, practicing how to ask “Would you like one?” In the next few weeks, they will continue to learn about the parts of pumpkins and apples, make applesauce, and begin a new food preparation activity - slicing bananas.
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Lower Elementary
As part of their year-long study of human innovation, Lower Elementary (6-9) students continue to explore how people have used the resources around them to meet their fundamental needs. They learned about early cave drawings, which inspired them to create their own drawings and imagine how anthropologists might use them 20,000 years from now to interpret what was most important to us. At Hagley Museum, they learned how factories hundreds of years ago used simple machines and about the power of water in factories before electricity.
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Upper Elementary
As they continue to explore the question, "What is culture?" Upper Elementary (9-12) students wrapped up research projects about the fundamental needs of a country and shifted their focus to immigration and Ellis Island. Part of this study includes a project on a famous immigrant each student chose to research. In book club, the students read
Esperanza Rising by
Pam Muñoz Ryan, and are working on a choice project, which can be a map, poem or newspaper headline.
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Middle School
Middle-schoolers just finished reading
Refugee by Alan Gratz and will begin
Piecing Me Together by Ren
ée Watson. Later this month, they will visit the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., to enhance what they learned through reading
Refugee and learn more about the Nazi regime's persecution of Jews during World War II. Students continue on their individual math paths and are nearing completion of their second units of study. Preparations for the Model Montessori UN have also ramped up, and students are busy writing papers to submit to the conference panel next month.
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The Wednesday Weekly shares WMS news and events that are relevant to the families in our community.
Please send submissions to
wednesday-weekly@wmsde.org
by 4:30 p.m. on the Friday prior to the issue in which you wish to include your information. Content may be edited for length and style and may be held for a future issue due to space constraints.
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WILMINGTON MONTESSORI SCHOOL
WWW.WMSDE.ORG
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Copyright © 2019. All Rights Reserved.
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